Raptors’ Sam Mitchell Named NBA Coach Of The Year
Posted April 24, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
He came to a team that had lost its biggest star, missed the playoffs five years in a row and was considered the doormat of the league.
He was even unofficially voted worst coach of the year in the NBA by Sports Illustrated last year.
So the turnaround that Raptor bench boss Sam Mitchell has undergone in just one year is a remarkable accomplishment.
As expected, Mitchell was named the NBA coach of the year on Tuesday, easily beating Utah’s Jerry Sloan for the honour.
He picked up 49 first place votes and wound up winning the final basket by 394 points overall in the balloting made by 128 writers and broadcasters. Sloan managed only 301. Dallas’ Avery Johnson came in third.
“It’s a little bit embarrassing,” Mitchell said Tuesday . “It’s very humbling considering the things we’ve been through. Not just me, my staff, the players who’ve been here, all the people who’ve been involved.
“It’s a great honour, it kind of floors you. You’re thankful, and words just can’t express it.”
The Raptors captured their first ever division title and tied their previous record high for wins with 47 this season.
And in the biggest sign of their success, they’re playing old nemesis Vince Carter and the New Jersey Nets in the first round of the playoffs, an event that would have seemed unthinkable even last year.
“I feel kind of funny sitting up here by myself,” said Mitchell. “I feel it should be the whole organization sitting up here behind me, the players, front office people, equipment managers . . . I tell the players all the time, there’s so much work going into us being successful.
As a coach, you get a lot of the credit, but there are so many people that make my job easier, so I can do my job.”
